‘It is only two hours work a day,’ said the sergeant.
Rosario looked at the shelves of the cookhouse, stacked high with tins of food, and the stores, full of crates and bundles. These people had everything. It had not been a fair fight against them. Through the office door he could see the captain, perched on the edge of a table, laughing and joking with a clerk. Look at him, a man without dignity! – Rosario had already forgotten his own contrary reaction of a few moments before – without pride! He had never seen an Italian officer demeaning himself like this!
‘And each time you come,’ said the sergeant, ‘you can eat at the cookhouse.’
‘But my mother,’ said Rosario, ‘my mother is poor, and old, and sick. How can I eat, here, when my mother is at home, hungry?’
‘All right, the cooks will give you food for your mother, too.’
‘Ah!’ Rosario clasped the sergeant’s hand again. ‘You are a noble man. I am fortunate to have such a good friend. My mother will pray for you.’ He was filled with goodwill, and with the desire to show his worth. “Where is the cart, signor sergente, I shall start at once. Without losing a second I shall start.’
§§§§
Graziella was ironing a shirt of Craddock’s when he appeared in the doorway of her house that afternoon. She paused, brushed the hair back from her eyes and said, ‘Come in. It will soon be ready.’
Craddock walked round the table towards her, expecting a kiss, but she was intent on her ironing again. He sat down, and leaned on the table with folded arms. He asked, ‘Are you glad to see me?’
She looked up at him, and a smile flickered in the depths of her eyes; then the expression returned which he had seen in her eyes last night when he had left her, an expression which might have been hostility. She set a tumbler on the table before him, filled it with wine and said, ‘Drink.’
‘Not you?’
She shook her head. She folded his shirt with quick, skilled movements, set it aside and sat down, well back from the table, with her hands in her lap.
Craddock emptied the glass. ‘This is good wine.’
‘It is the wine of Etna. In my village they make it. You want more?’
‘No.’ Even when they had been together last night she had been as remote as this, and their conversation as insignificant. Her agonies and her satisfaction had been entirely private.
‘I have some pasta cooked, and cheese. You want to eat?’
‘No. We have eaten in the barracks.’
She smiled, and pointed to the cot. ‘Fifo sleeps. He sleeps much now, and he hardly weeps. It is the milk.’
‘And the chocolate, eh? His face is covered with chocolate. You should wash him.’
She laughed. ‘Why? It tastes nice when I kiss him.’
‘You must put chocolate on your face.’
She uttered a scornful noise, but she smiled at him with more warmth. ‘You must change your clothes again before you go. I will wash them.’
‘After only one day?’
She pushed back the dark mass of hair that fell across her eyes each time she moved her head. ‘You have two sets. Each day I shall wash one of them. Each day you shall wear a clean one. You will look good, and you will feel good. And I shall be proud of you.’
He leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Come here, Graziella.’
She did not move. She brooded for a moment, and said, ‘I have thought much. I do not know what to do. One sins once, one sins twice, one sins always. But perhaps it is too late to think.’
‘You do not want?’
She laughed, and made a little movement of her head. She came to him, and sank on to her heels at his feet. ‘Your boots are heavy. Let me unlace them. You will feel cooler.’
Her cheek was against his knee, and he touched her hair with his fingers. She asked, ‘Does your wife do this?’
‘No. But in the morning she brings me a cup of tea in bed.’
‘Do you think often of your wife?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are not afraid anymore of what people will say? If someone comes now and sees us?’
She went to the door, shut it and bolted it. ‘Now no one will come.’
The room was in shadow. The barred and grimy window was in a recess containing a charcoal stove and a lava sink, and what little light came in was lost among the dishrags that hung above the sink. The white-washed walls, bare except for some shelves on the window side, some garish holy pictures and a porcelain Madonna on a bracket, glimmered palely. The only furniture consisted of the huge marriage bed, the small table, four plain chairs, the baby’s cot, a wall cupboard for clothes and a two-tiered corner stand bearing an accumulation of ornaments and family photographs. Graziella sat on the bed, and her wooden-soled sandals fell with a clatter on the tiled floor. She pulled off her shabby dress, and said, ‘Ecco!’ She looked at him through her hair. In her dress she looked slender, but now the soft amplitude of her bosom was revealed, her broad hips and her strong, thick calves. Her dark, broad cheeks fell away to a pointed chin that, with the gleam in her dark eyes, gave a hint of mockery to her face even in the tenderest moments.
Lying with his arm about her shoulders, Craddock said, ‘Speak the truth. You are glad to be with a man again.’
She pouted. ‘Half and half. Without a man it is bad sometimes. But it is peaceful. A woman can be content thus, having lived only to serve a man for years.’
‘You never thought of other men? You never wanted?’
‘Never. There was one man who wanted me. He did nothing. He only looked at me. Sometimes he touched me, or said a few words, but no more. But he made me feel hunted, like a beast desired by a beast. If he made me feel like a woman, it was only the more for my husband. For this one I felt only disgust.’
‘And for me, what do you feel?’
‘I do not know. What do you want me to feel?’
‘Love?’
‘Love? That is a word for girls, not for people like us. Perhaps a friendship, a friendship of the body.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘But this is not the time to talk.’
‘It is the best time to talk.’ He stared in a long silence at the fly-specked ceiling. ‘You know about the Simeto? There were dead in the river, and dead in the fields, everywhere. We could not move, in the daytime, to bury them, because of the enemy guns above in the hills. They rotted. It was very hot.’
She held his hand and let him talk.
After a while she said, ‘I will bring you more wine.’
‘No. Stay still.’
‘No, wine is good now. Then you can close your eyes, and sleep.’
He raised his head to watch her padding about the room. The sight of her, clumsy-haunched but graceful, gave him a sense of comfort, of belonging.
There were footsteps in the street. Other footsteps had gone by occasionally, sounding as if they were in another world, but this time she looked up in alarm and said, ‘Silence!’
There was a rattling at the door, and Nella’s voice, ‘Graziella! Graziella!’
Graziella signed to him to remain still.
Graziella!’ Nella tugged and thumped at the door. The baby stirred at the noise, and moaned. Graziella hurried to the cot and soothed the child. Nella must have heard its whimpering. She cried, ‘Graziella! What is the matter? I can hear you.’
Graziella shouted, frantically, ‘Be quiet, fool, you will wake the baby. I am washing. I am all wet. I cannot open the door. Come back later.’
‘You can open the door,’ Nella shrilled. ‘I will come in and shut it quickly.’
‘I tell you I cannot come!’
‘I shall wait. Do not be long.’
Graziella looked about her, distracted. She fumbled at her purse, took out some paper money and pushed it under the door. ‘There! While you are waiting, run and get me some fish, some sardines to fry.’
‘You did not buy this morning?’ There was a quaver of suspicion in Nella’s voice.
‘No. Go now, quickly.’
/> They heard Nella scampering away. Graziella sighed, and began to dress. ‘It was ugly, non è vero?’ she said.
Craddock nodded. He, too, felt depressed. ‘This will happen again.’
‘Yes, it will be difficult. Perhaps I shall tell her. I do not know yet. Now you must go.’
He was already buttoning his bush shirt. ‘Listen, Graziella,’ he said, ‘it cannot be like this every time. I will not hide in the dark with you every time. I would like to walk with you, in the street. They are opening cinemas. I want to take you. I want to go to the shops with you. That is friendship, too. This was good, but that is good, too, outside in the sunshine.’
‘Ba?’ She was incredulous. ‘You do not understand our life here! I must live here when you are gone. I cannot walk in the street with you.
‘All right, not in this street, but we can meet somewhere.’
‘Non si fa così. This is not a big town. Listen, tomorrow morning I shall go to Mass. You want to come?’
‘Where?’
‘The cathedral. You know the cathedral? The people of this street do not go there. We go to a little church, near here. But tomorrow I shall go to the cathedral, at ten o’clock. You will be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now go.’
He was blinded for a moment by the sunlight as he stepped out into the street. He raised his head to face the light, and saw Rosario standing in the entrance of the shop next door. Rosario’s deep-set eyes gleamed. A smile distorted his face; he inclined his head in a movement so exaggerated that it was almost a bow, and said with great courtesy, ‘Buongiorno, signor sergente, buongiorno.’
§§§§
The evening was cool and sweet. Nella, hot and flushed with running, paused and rested against the low sea wall. She was tired, not only by her exertions but by the waning of the hysteria that had possessed her. It was two hours since Graziella had driven her away from the door. She had lurked, trembling and suspicious, at the street corner to see what would happen next – had Graziella thought she was a fool, not to suspect? – and she had seen the Englishman coming out. She had wandered off in a daze, hardly knowing what she was doing as she went to the market, bought the fish and took it back to Graziella. Graziella had looked at her, and she had looked sullenly at Graziella; and she had burst into tears. There had been a little spell of comfort while Graziella held her, and stroked her hair, and murmured to her. ‘We are women,’ Graziella had whispered, ‘we are sinners, we are weak,’ and, crying a little herself, ‘what else have we?’
‘You will say nothing?’ Graziella had asked, embracing her as she left; and Nella, feeling suddenly flattered at being the possessor of a secret, at being treated as an older woman, had kissed Graziella and consoled her, and had promised.
Afterwards, when she was alone on the waterfront, and the warm comfort of shared sorrows had worn off, she felt tricked and disillusioned. If she had been capable of calm thought she would not have blamed Graziella. Her life in these swarming streets, as well as the impatience of her own young body, had taught her all about the needs and impulses of the flesh. But jealousy took possession of her; jealousy of the man who had come between her and her beloved Graziella.
It had been wonderful with Graziella; helping her to keep house, and being trusted by her as an equal, as a fellow-housewife; sharing secrets and confidences and whispered, ribald jokes with her. At home with mamma life was always uneasy and strained. Mamma was silent, or querulous, or mumbling, but never of her own world, an old woman, shrivelled like a dead fruit; Graziella was young, with blood that ran like her own, thoughts and curiosities that surged like her own. Together in that manless house they had embraced each other, mingled tears, known and consoled each other’s hunger. Oh, the beauty of being women together!
The jealousy, working in her immature and tormented mind, bred new resentments. To think that Graziella was the woman who had lectured her, who had protected her, who had implored her to be good! Good! Only children were good. Women said these things, but they went their own way. Her feverish imagination dwelt on what must have been happening behind that bolted door. She felt hot and weak at the thought of the forbidden pleasures.
She believed herself spurned now, shut out by Graziella, the strange and secret intimacy for ever lost. Heartbroken, she had wandered away along the waterfront, in flight from this new and terrible loneliness and from the incomprehensible longings of her body.
She had come a long way, past the railway station, through the tangle of streets beyond, out into the northern suburbs of the town. She had not known where she was going, and for a second she was frightened. Graziella had never permitted her to go so far on her own – scorn and anger returned – a fine one Graziella was to protect her!
It was pleasant here, on the dusty, white road through Ognina. On her left, with the foothills rising in terraces beyond, were villas and peasant cottages, white walls and dark walls of heaped lava, groves of orange trees and olives and almonds, infusing the evening breeze with their scent; on her right, the bay, with the tranquil sea shaded from cobalt to purple, gaily coloured fishing boats drawn up on the beach and the Rocks of the Cyclops rearing in the distance. The far-off rumble of artillery and the mutter of aircraft overhead did not disturb. British army cars swished quietly along the road. A car crawled past – a tiny, square-bodied truck with a canvas hood; she looked idly, felt an impulse of recognition and looked again. She knew the driver, the fine, big man with the bold face and the red-gold hair. It was Il Rosso, the English captain about whom all the women whispered.
A peremptory whistle roused her from her thoughts. The car had stopped on the other side of the road. The captain looked out through the open window and beckoned. Nella left the wall and took a few paces towards the car. She stopped; the first quiver of curiosity was gone, and her instincts took hold of her, conflicting instincts of fear and desire. The captain gestured again; his face was unsmiling. Still Nella hesitated. She was in a panic. Thought was impossible, and the violent thumping of her heart made her feel sick. The captain turned away from the window and she heard the engine of the car snarl again. Nella cried. ‘Wait!’ as the vehicle trembled on the verge of movement. She was confused with defiance, despair, passion, tears. The captain called out to her in an impatient voice, and she scurried across to the car. ‘Just think,’ she told herself ecstatically, as she settled herself in the warmth of the cab, trying to ignore the beating of her heart, with the man at her side apparently quite indifferent to her presence as he looked out over the bonnet, ‘Just think, I am going for a ride in a car!’
Chapter Eight
THE piazza in front of the cathedral was gay in the sunshine, its pavements crowded with Sunday morning strollers whose summer suits and white dresses enhanced the brilliance of the light. The air itself seemed to be astir with a million flashing fragments of noise and light and colour. Watching the scene from the cathedral steps, Craddock experienced the same sensations of clarion and gaiety, of sharing in a universal lightheartedness, that in another existence he had known on bright summer days at the seaside or on the towpath at Richmond.
The building, from the outside, was less attractive, its ornate front dirty and decaying, its left wall disfigured by bomb damage. Entering, however, he was immediately subdued by the contained vastness of the interior, the hushed gloom of the nave and the white dazzle within the roof where all the furtive noises of the congregation seemed to gather.
People moved like shadows among the great piers and the gilt and marble tombs, some tiptoeing to a side chapel where a priest was preparing for the next Mass, some making their way towards the High Altar, others going down the aisle towards a chapel where tall candles glimmered in front of a draped image of the Virgin; today was a Catholic feast and many had come to make their devotions to the Madonna.
He could not see Graziella anywhere. He walked round the fringes of the group of people who were assembling for the Mass, feeling self-conscious as his footste
ps provoked an occasional glance of annoyance. She was not there. He stood behind the congregation, leaning on a pillar, and watched the Mass. Within the vast, whispering quietness the chanting of the choir at the High Altar mingled with the beehive mumble of the Mass. The ceaseless, unarticulated drone and the quivering purity of the candle-flames before his eyes were hypnotic. Scepticism was dulled and he submitted to his surroundings, enjoying the contrasts of dimness and white light and the sad, sensuous sounds of worship.
Graziella came hurrying past from somewhere within the building. There was scarcely any recognition in her glance as she saw him, before she joined in the Mass.
The congregation dispersed and he lost sight of her among the swirl of people. He followed – some instinct seemed to enable him to distinguish the tapping of her sandals on the mosaic floor among all the slap and shuffle of shoes – and caught sight of her again. She was waiting for him on the steps as he emerged into the sunlight.
She smiled faintly, and kept a little apart from him. People were clattering past them into the street. On the pavement below two nuns were marshalling a duster of tiny, black-frocked orphans into a procession.
‘I did not see you come in,’ Craddock said. ‘Where were you before the Mass?’
She was looking down on the children and the passing crowds, her lips slightly parted as if she were enjoying an unaccustomed pleasure. She did not turn her head towards him as she answered, ‘At confession.’
‘You confessed?
‘Yes.’
‘About us?’
She nodded, and he laughed brutally.
She turned to him angrily, ‘You have no right to laugh. I have told you, you do not know our life. A woman is shut up in darkness all her life. All her sins, all her sorrows, all her suffering, gather within her own soul. It is good to confess, to confess everything, not only the truth, but everything. It unburdens the heart. One can breathe again for a little while.’ She smiled at him, sadly but with more tolerance. ‘There are even some women who find comfort because only here may they talk to another man beside their husbands. Their lives are lonely and dark, and here they sit, with no one to see their faces, and they can talk, and talk, and empty their hearts, and know that behind the screen a man is listening. You smile? You think that it is foolish? But I cannot believe it is evil, even when the priest is weak and he holds their hands.’
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